If she'd got a "little suite" at the Savoy, the woman must have money. She couldn't be a common or garden medium cadging for mere fees. Besides, no common or garden person, an absolute stranger to Robert Lorillard, met by sheer accident, could have described June Dana and that gray dress of four years ago; her jewels, too! Robert's name she might have picked up if Joyce or I had let it drop by accident; but the last was inexplicable. The thing that had happened—that was happening—seemed to me miraculous, and tragic. I felt that Fate had seized the bright bird of happiness and would crush it to death, unless something intervened. And what could intervene? I struggled not to see the future as a foregone conclusion. But I could see it in no other way except by shutting my eyes.
Robert turned to Joyce. He didn't say to her, "What am I to do?" Yet she read the silent question and answered it.
"Of course you must go," she said. "It—whether it's genuine or not, you'll have to find out. You can't let it drop."
"No, I can't let it drop," he echoed. He looked stricken. He, too, saw the dark, fatal hand grasping the white bird.
He had loved June passionately, but the beautiful body he'd held in his arms lay under that sundial by the riverside. Her spirit was of another world. And he'd not have been a human, hot-blooded man, if the reproachful wraith of an old love could be more to him than the brave girl who'd saved his life and won his soul back from despair.
I saw, as if through their eyes, the thing they faced together, those two, and suddenly I rebelled against that figure of Destiny. I was wild to save the white bird before its wings had ceased to flutter. I didn't know at all what to do. But I had to do something. I simply had to!
Miss Reardon rose.
"Would you like to come with me now?" she asked, addressing Robert, not Joyce or me. She ignored us, but not in a rude way. Indeed, there was a direct and rather childlike simplicity in her manner, which impressed one with her genuineness. I was afraid—horribly afraid—and almost sure, that she was genuine. I respected her against my will, because she didn't worry to be polite; but at the same time I didn't intend to be shunted. I determined to be in at the death—or whatever it was!
"Aren't you going to invite us, too?" I asked. "If the—the apparition is the spirit we think we recognize, she and I were dear friends."
Miss Reardon's round, mild eyes searched my face. Then they turned as if to consult another face which only they could see. It was creepy to watch them gaze steadily at something in that big, empty armchair.